Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac are the men who most inspired me to be the type of 24-year-old who barhopped by himself around Jackson, Tennessee after covering a Birmingham Barons/West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx Double-A baseball game - the type of guy who, when sensing late in the night that nothing interesting was developing beyond a nice drunk and August MLB played soundlessly on a TV in the background, decided to provoke a polo-tucked-in-his-jeans southern college kid who kept playing John Mayer's first album on the jukebox.
As far as road trip idols go, this pair of authors is an unoriginal choice, probably about like a guitar player declaring that the riffs of Elvis and Paul McCartney inspirited them to take up the instrument. But if there are bigger or better giants than Thompson and Kerouac, as far as Making A Good Story Wherever You Go goes, I still haven't discovered them.
While I still smile at the adventures of Thompson, Kerouac and even early-20s Williams, my days of seeking to amuse myself by challenging the conventions and patience of blond frat boys, bartenders, uptight pool-hall dwellers and any other type of local are over. My bear-, monkey- and shrew-poking stick is all but retired.
Therefore, yesterday's soccer road trip to Al Ain was going to have to manufacture its own satisfying plot, and quite frankly that never happened.
The 105-minute drive along Abu Dhabi/Al Ain road was interesting in the same way that driving in UAE is always interesting (which deserves its own entry at some point), with Porsches and Lexuses going 200 kilometers per hour in the hammer lane, wobbly worker buses going 65 kph in the right, and the rest of us fending against both of them with a nebulous speed limit of around 120-140 kph and radar cameras looming.
Al Ain was kind of an interesting town, a hilly suburb that appeared more Arab than Abu Dhabi or Dubai, and I enjoyed how the stadium was set against a craggy horizon. Al Ain is near Oman, and
it reminded me of it.
But the atmosphere for the game was lackluster. There were probably over 1,000 fans in a stadium that supposedly seats 12,000, with neither the Indians or the Emirati turning out in full force for the game.
The host-country fans, congregated around midfield along the opposite sideline from me, slightly outnumbered the visitors. They sang the same songs that I heard at the two UAE Pro League games I attended previously, and they certainly cheered for their team, but the mood seemed more like complacency than intensity. My perspective: It's your national team which you don't get to watch play very often, your country's most beloved sport, and what was practically an elimination game on the road to the biggest sporting event in the world - you should have a lot more fans, and the ones that show up should be in a frenzy.
I really think this country needs a marketing overhaul on its brand of soccer. National pride seems to be important to the Emirati - at least the country's brass - and the level of interest in native-land soccer seems embarrassing. Yes, I would love a job market researching and proposing a strategic overhaul of the "selling" of soccer in the UAE (in quotes because entrance to all games are free, another reason it's absurd there aren't more fans attending).
The Indians, who I thought might show up in droves like
Mexicans at a U.S./Mexico match in LA, were a compact group confined to two sections in a corner of the stadium. I would say they were more passionately engaged than the UAE fans, but their determination was weakened when their team lost hope in the match rather quickly.
The match itself was bizarre but not compelling, as UAE basically cruised to a 3-0 victory despite a lack of quality finishing. A ref from Qatar awarded UAE two penalty kicks in a matter of two minutes -at about the 19- and 21-minute marks, and neither time did the UAE actually possess the ball in the box...taken altogether, a highly unusual string of occurrences. In a section with a very good view but practically no one around me (I was at about the 30 yard line), I was able to move beside the outdoor press box when the penalties were awarded and catch the replays on a 20-inch tv.
The first penalty/red card was called when a UAE player was running onto a nice chip in the box that would have resulted in a solid scoring opportunity, but as the beaten Indian player used his arms to try to regain defending position, the UAE player fell to the ground with emphasis. A 50-50 call in my book, as the official could have overlooked the foul to penalize the striker for going down so easily.
The second penalty was far worse, as the UAE sent another ball into the box that was handled fairly easily by the Indian goalkeeper. But an Emirati striker charged the goalie anyways, who put his knee up and grazed the UAE player (again, performing the familiar soccer go-down-and-grab-your-ankle act that makes it hard to defend the sport), and somehow that resulted in another penalty kick and the expulsion of India's starting goalie. Of course the Indian fans were livid, and if they actually had filled the stands, the atmosphere would have become hair-raising (especially for the Qatari ref) at that point.
But the majority of the stadium was empty, and I considered a 9 p.m. escape back to Abu Dhabi before the first half ended. I stuck it out though. The fear of the road trip gods punishing me by causing me to miss something memorable is always too great.
Unfortunately, the best story after that point was India, playing 9 against 11 after the two red cards, lasting about 60 minutes of game time before surrendering another goal. Indian back-up goalie Karanjit Singh, who came on to be beaten by UAE's second penalty kick, was the closest thing the game had to a hero, making more on-goal saves than I believe I've ever seen in the pros. Still, even the moral victory didn't end up making much of a story, as UAE scored in the 81st minute, effectively taking it from highly unlikely to nearly impossible for India to come back in Thursday's return game in Delhi. India would need to win by four goals to advance to the next stage of qualifying.
And really that's good for me, because although yesterday's trip lacked indelible stimuli, I still enjoyed the soccer. The UAE isn't as good as Spain or even the U.S., but it's still a pretty high level of play, and at least I can get a front row seat.
Assuming the UAE takes care of business in Delhi, they'll advance to the group stage of qualifying, beginning in September. There will be more opportunities to see home games in UAE, and maybe a match against Australia or China or Iran will bring about the type of high-stakes-soccer culture-on-culture event that I seek, or maybe the road trip gods will just reward my persistence.
(Outside the stadium an hour before game time...you can see our gorgeous Nissan Tiida in front of those buses) 
(UAE plays most of the second half taking target practice at India's back-up goalie, but not scoring much)
(Low key post-game congratulations amongst UAE teammates after a low key affair)
Above is a picture of our apartment building to the right, and in the middle, the tent they have been setting up for weeks now, which I believe will serve as a festive eating and socializing place during Ramadan. Normally, that area would all be a walkway, where kids from our building often congregate to play soccer in the late afternoon (I haven't invited myself to join yet). It is quite the structure for a tent - it winds in the back and I'm sure it's more than 100 feet long in total - plus new items are set up inside it every day, such as that gigantic air-conditioning system you see in the bottom left corner.
